The Case of the Murdered Mathematician, page 11
“Oh, let’s go!” groaned Clarvoe.
“Let’s,” said Quiribus meekly. And with proper academic restraint. Though were the truth to be told, he was actually bursting with curiosity as to what a man of his science could even have depicted on two sides of a blackboard by which, presumably, the latter’s killer could be identified and trapped.
CHAPTER IX
“Odd Zooks—Reporters!”
George Clarvoe, nattily-attired Chief of the Homicide Division, Chicago Detective Bureau, Chicago, about to lead his obdurate “mathematical expert” to the room where one Professor Lucius Munstergale, elderly mathematician, had died, shot through the brain, had a scowl on his own face.
It was a scowl, that scowl, quite out of keeping with Clarvoe’s own airy-fairy, man-about-town attire, consisting of glove-fitting black and white pin-striped suit, green and white checked soft shirt with soft plaid tie carrying tiny sparkling diamond, and—that rakishly-set purple velour hat!
It was a scowl that persisted even as Clarvoe’s hard, cold, even too-narrow-set blue eyes took their last businesslike look about the rich plum-carpeted library, with its book-covered walls and its pedestal-supported busts, where he had been closeted for a while with his “expert.” The scowl was, beyond doubt, due to the fact that he had had to use up as much time as he had in giving this “human mule”—as beyond doubt he was terming him!—though human mule who at least could, as Clarvoe had been assured by his cousin Frank Spelvin, be trusted to keep his mouth shut—facts about a murder case that was all Clarvoe’s own.
Quiribus Brown, the said “expert,” his 7½ feet of giantism now reared vertically atop its long tree-trunks of legs, rising from blackshod steamboatlike feet, but stood humbly, waiting to be led. His deep brown eyes, almost in keeping with his great specially-made funereally black coat, seemed to radiate a kindly tolerant patience, though the great grey oversized felt hat, exactly matching the grey flannel shirt, clutched firmly in one hamlike hand, seemed to say eagerly, “Let’s go!”
And now Clarvoe, catching, as was evident, a glimpse at that clutched hat that frankly bespoke an eagerness to apply mathematics to anything that might be “mathematical,” but taking manifest good care, as was always evident, to introduce no-o-o-o more subjects for time-wasting, turned, and was now leading the way from the room. Ten seconds later, the library behind them, the two men’s heels were echoing hollowly over the polished hardwood parquet floor of the great crystal-hung reception hallway outside, in the direction of a small green-baize-covered door directly across the hall from where they had exited.
Quiribus, glancing streetward as they proceeded, through the transparent segments of glass that made up the great multi-glassed front door transom, saw that the sun, a little while before above the roofs across the street, and hence flooding this whole space, had now evidently dropped considerably horizonward. For the edges of the roofs across the way were etched sharply against a reddened sky. The great hallway itself was even gloom-ridden.
“Must be,” he ventured to the man in front of him, and more to break the sinister and ghostlike silence of the place, “well after 5, don’t you think? One’d never know time—in here.”
To which his guide, clicking ahead, but threw an unsmiling backward look and a grunt. As much to say, perhaps: “So it’s overtime you’re looking for now, eh?”
Between the gargantuan grand piano that stood in the rear of the hall, and the base of the majestic stairway curving upward, they now threaded their way. And, as they did, Quiribus, about to enter a room of death, reverently deposited his great hat on the piano. And continued on. And in but a second or so more Clarvoe was unlocking that green-baize-covered door toward which they had plainly been proceeding, with a key which protruded from the outside.
But he did not throw it open. At least yet. Turning, he surveyed his “expert” troubledly.
“Listen here. Big Boy,” he said, almost plaintively, “are you sure—you can take it? A corpse, I mean? You’re about to enter a mathematician’s sanctoriorium—with things in it that I’ve never seen on land or sea—though to you they’ll probably be 100 p’cent understandable. But—this sanctoriorium has got a corpse in it! In the Homicide Department, we get corpses morning, noon, and night, so to speak: to us, they’re nix. But now—”
Meaningfully he said no more.
And Quiribus made haste to reassure him.
“For reasons I can go into, if you want to ask me,” he said, “a dead person or animal means quite nothing to me. Though not, however, Mr. Clarvoe, for the reason you may think. Namely, that I’m a giant. And abnormal. But because—”
“’Nough said!” grunted Clarvoe. “That’s a-a-all I want to know. Okay.”
He turned to the door whose key he had revolved. But before he could even throw the door open, there was a long ring at the front-door bell.
“Oh-oh!” he said, revolving about. “And odzooks, zounds and hellfire—to boot. Reporters! Or else, if the good Lord is smiling down on me—my other expert.”
“Other—expert?” Quiribus bridled up. And flushing. “You—you mean—you thought you’d have to get confirmed anything I might tell you on—”
“Pipe down, Big Boy,” said the other gently. “If he’s the ‘expert’ I’m referring to, he’s an expert purely in another manner. The manner of—well—of getting confidential info out of Sicilian servants and donations from fine ladies for—no, no, I’m not nuts. I—now listen.”
He gazed down the long hall.
“How are you on acting, Big Boy?”
“Acting? Well I—I—I—”
“Oh, you can do what I want. And since you’re working for me, I want you to do it. Now listen. It’s hell on wheels how news of crime leaks out to the Press. And this affair mustn’t leak there—just yet. Not at least till I’ve gotten your verdict on something—and had a further half-hour to act on same. Now if that bird who just rang out there is one of a duo or trio—if he’s even just a single lone wolf of a reporter—that is, if he’s anybody at all but the man who’s to give me the 24-carat lowdown on something, I want you to say, ‘Sorry, but Professor Munstergale is engaged just now in giving me my algebra lesson’—clench up that hamlike fist of yours—and whoever ’tis won’t argue, but will skeedaddle. But—”
“Yes? I want to co-operate. What?”
“—but,” instructed Clarvoe carefully, “if he’s my other expert—now listen,” he broke off helplessly, like a man wondering if he had lost his complete intellectual freedom, “listen, Big Boy, this case you’re to pass on an opinion on, and earn a sweet 10-buck fee, has already riveted itself conclusively to two persons here in Chi. Both puh-lenty high up, too. We’ll call ’em Mr. A—and Mr. B, see? Your opinion, however, will clinch whom it really rivets to. Except ’at they’s been a gun used in this murder. A strange revolver, I dope it out to have been, that shoots high-powered, steel-nosed slugs. Now if I could only find out—the while said Mr. A and said Mr. B are away from their homes, on this first day after said bump-off—and before either said Mr. A or Mr. B has commenced to lay cunning trains of demolishment like—like, say, vacations for servants—trips for wives!—you know?—well, if I could only find out, while the finding out is still possible—short ‘hot’—if either—”
“—yes, if either Mr. A or Mr. B has a gun—rather, an odd gun—you would be closer to clinch—”
“’At’s—right! Yep. And now, before that patient bozo out there rings again, let’s see how your mathematics really are! Mr. A, as I happen to know, has an old but recently-hired Sicilian woman servant. Belonging, consequently, like all Sicilians, bar none, to the Sicilian Society of Chicago. Mr. B, on the other hand, has a wife who gives to every damned charity in town, regardless of nationality or religion. And the Sicilian Society, or Unione Siciliano as it’s called, is an inveterate beggar around the time of the annual religious festivals.
“Oh, I see a least common denominator there! Like in the expression a b + a c, the common denominator is—ah—a. You’d have need of, to get your information, a Sicilian of high degree. Who—yes, who could get confidential information from the Sicilian woman servant of Mr. A, and who—who could logically bone the other woman for a donation. Like—like an odd gun—for—for a gun exhibit, or—Why yes, how clear.”
“Glad it is! For now you’ll know why I phoned the biggest guy in town in that field. The head of the Unione Siciliano himself! The same being one powerful organization, believe you me! And its Chief being one rich man to boot, believe you me likewise! But one who can be trusted to keep a tight mouth in his head—so long as it’s a matter that don’t concern his people. Now skip to yon door. The while I skulk like a roach here, back of the line of the piano. And use your own judgment. If you see a smart aleck in checked pants and dirty collar, he’s almost certainly a reporter. Shoo him to hell and gone. But if you see a man radiating power, and wearing a blazing rock in his tie—well that’s the Big Boy himself in affairs Sicilian, who’s my other expert and not your mathematical rival, either. So go to it. And highball me—if he’s my man.”
“I understand,” nodded Quiribus.
And turning, he went down the hall in giant steps, to the door. Wondering a bit sadly, however, if, by some information from the man who perhaps stood without—if, as was possible, he were the expert in question—this case might evaporate, perish, come to a close—before he, Quiribus, ever get a chance to sink his hungry mathematical teeth into it!
CHAPTER X
Man of Power
The man who stood outside was by no means a reporter. As even Quiribus realized instantly. He was a man of about 60, radiating in both his posture and the very sombreness of his garb the power of one who was head over many people, and chief of an organization connected with the same. For his wide-brimmed felt hat, with pointed crown, was black, and matched the all-black suit he wore on his once-powerful frame. The tie that crossed the impeccably white shirt front was a string tie, and black, though in it blazed the single huge blue-white diamond that Clarvoe had forecast would be worn by the man he sought information from. The caller did not have the flowing moustaches to be seen on many flamboyantly kerchiefed Sicilians to be found in Sicilian quarters of big cities, but had a businesslike, close-cropped one, now touched with grey. His face was olive in tint, like that of his people, and his eyes were the jet black eyes of his own race.
He held in his fingers a piece of paper. He had evidently been re-surveying it, if not coming to the conclusion that he had somehow gotten the wrong number if not perhaps the wrong street, for he looked up with a troubled expression. Only to break forth into an amused grimace.
“Now do I know I am crazee!” he said. I expect bootler or leetla serving gal to open door—and catch giant! I am suppose’ to see Eenspactor Geo-airge Clarvoe at theez address—and nobody even open door. Crazee I am, all right, and—”
“No, mister,” Quiribus hastened to assure him, “you’re not crazy. And I call you mister only because I don’t know your name. But you’re at the right place and—” He turned. “Mister Clarvoe?” he called. “It’s okay.”
But George Clarvoe was already forging down the great hall. As Quiribus drew the door more open and stood aside.
“Come in—my fran’!” the Homicide Chief was saying expansively, with the obvious enforced friendliness of one who seeks something. “I was hiding in back there—lest reporters come here and—”
The Chief of the Unione Siciliano, whatever his name might be, was coming diffidently in. Quiribus closed the door gently. Stood there. A sort of 5th wheel.
Clarvoe, now at the door, and becoming a salesman selling Frigidaires in the Arctic, was violently pumping a hand that seemed to be trying to remain on a calm, dispassionate relationship. The owner of the hand, withdrawing it, and flexing his fingers to see if all were still on his hand, asked an obvious question.
“You got som’ trobble here, Eenspactor? Boorglary, mabbe?”
“Worse, my fran’. Worse. But keep it under cover. Till you read the papers. I—”
The head of the Unione Siciliano was looking about the great hall with interest. His eyes dwelt on the great crystal-hung chandelier as only the eyes of one appreciative of its inherent beauty could dwell. He withdrew them, by obvious effort.
“Well, you wan’ know, Eenspactor, the resolt of my two phone calls, yes, no?”
“And how, my fran’. And how!”
“Well—” The other shook his shoulders in a peculiar expression. “Well, the old Seeceelian woman whose name you geev me—”
“Mister A’s servant, yes,” put in Clarvoe quickly.
“Yes. Well whan I find she eez reglar mamber of Seeceelian Society and loyal to us—to her Chief—I call her and ask her out and out eef her master ’ave a gun of any nature. And she say—”
“Yes?”
“She say yes, till recent. She say her master did say onlee theez morneeng, when she did ask him we’re eez revolver he usu’lly ’ave in bureau drawer, he did say, ‘Oh, I ’ave t’row dat dam’ teeng away a week ago—in lake. Eet no shoot, an’way.’”
“No shoot—anyway? The hell it didn’t—that is—but go ahead, my fran’? I believe you’ve done for me, this fine day, somep’n more valuable than my big helper here can do for me. For—”
“But wait!” cautioned the Chief of the Unione Siciliano. Obviously understanding that the presence and possession of guns by certain persons was highly determinative in some matter—connected with this place. “Whan I call theez lady who—”
“—who’s married to Mr. B,” put in Clarvoe hastily. “Yeah?”
“—and tall her ’bout our people here—so moch poverty for many of them—sure, I tall her, me, I am rich man—importing beez’ness and many ah—uh—”
“—rackets,” smiled Clarvoe. “Go ahead, my fran’! We all rake off part of our take in life from rackets of some kind. Even my big friend here has a racket. That he’s trying to play, this day and this hour. And me—go ahead?”
The wealthy man smiled. “I no tall her ’bout rackets. She no onderstand eef I did. But I tall her that because me, I am a rich man, I still no can do it all. For Seeceelians. And I tall her how we going have fiesta soon in Nort’ Side Leetla Seeceely, and I am personally ask’ all fine people for contreebutions—p’ticularly do I tall her how we going to have great exh’beetion of revolvers to weech people mos’ pay $1 admission, and that I hear she an’ her hosband have rare gon in their home—” The Chief of the Unione Siciliano stopped ruefully.
“And she said what?” asked Clarvoe tensely.
The informant shook his head sadly.
“She mak’ cleecking noise weeth lips. ‘Ah, too bad,’ she say. ‘We deed ’ave strange gon here for mont’s—som’theeng my hosband own. But me, I am afraid of guns. An’ only theez morneeng did he say, “My love, I ’ave got reed of gun. No longer you fear.” ’ To weech she added—”
“Yes, what? What?”
“She say, ‘Seence I am wan year marry today, can I celebrate by donate’ $25 to fiesta?’ To weech I can but say, ‘Yes, madam, and thanks.’”
Clarvoe shook his head disgustedly.
“Can you beat it? Can you beat it? Two men—each now gotten rid of a gun that—This thing is worse than an Uncle Tom’s Cabin play with 2 Uncle Toms, 2 Little Evas, 2 Simon Legrees, 2—
“Well,” he broke off, “I am grateful to you, my fran’. You were the common denomyator in my problem. As my big friend here, who knows arithmetic and things like that, has put it. And you came up nobly—excep’ ’at you came double. And left me—where I was! Never mind, I’m grateful. Now what can I—representing the police, of course—do for you? Or for your people?”
The head of the Unione Siciliano was thoughtful.
“You ask,” he said. “So I answer. My people, leeving wast an southwast an’ nort’ of Loop, they mak’ planty of wine weech—”
“I know—I know all about it. They make enough to both drink and sell to Italian restaurants all over town, who draw 1 bottle out of 10 from a tax-paid container, and 9 out of 10 from under the counter. And since only via us can the Government handle that flow of stuff, you want us to—forget it. Well, we long ago figured out our policy there. To lay off—of basement wineries of both Italians and Sicilians. So long’s your folks don’t try to barge into the liquor stores with that river of ruby red, we’re leaving you alone. So rest easy. No raids—for basement wineries.”
“I thank you, Eenspactor. Moch! Now eez there more as I can do?”
“Not a thing, my fran’. You’ve done plenty.”
The head of the Unione Siciliano appeared crestfallen that he could not further help. He stood a moment, then evidently realized that because of politeness being extended him, he should make the move of departure. He bowed. Turned to the door. Quiribus, near it, opened it. The elderly Sicilian went out, with backward puzzled smile, and a friendly salute of his finger.
And Quiribus closed the door.
Clarvoe, facing him, was shaking his head dolorously.
“Can you beat it?” he was practically wailing. “Each one—getting rid of a gun! Tighter and tighter it rivets—on the two. Yet only one—only one—can be guilty.” He surveyed Quiribus piercingly. “My big friend from the rural stretches, more and more does it seem to me this day, that your opinion, and yours only, is the one that will crack the strangest murder case of the century. The Case of the Murdered Mathematician. Come on. Let’s go!”
CHAPTER XI
Room of Death
Now back at the green baize door which 10 minutes ago he had been about to enter, Clarvoe lost no more time in assuring himself his helper was not afraid of corpses. He turned the key and threw the door open.
Revealing therein—or at least when he had passed in himself, stepped aside, and drawn the door fully open for the giant to follow—a small and peculiarly ascetic room, its hardwood floor minus a single rug, and lighted up, oddly enough, not by any daylight whatsoever, but by generous artificial light seemingly pouring from several sources; and containing, as was to be expected, a dead man—a dead man seated in a Windsor armchair, turned well off from some sort of long ledge-like study desk covering an entire right wall, and thus facing the very door of the room from a distance of but 8 feet or more. Or else, perhaps, but facing another empty Windsor armchair standing off from the first, and in which the killer himself in this case apparently had sat.
